


Not, Now

by deird1



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: AU, Dawnverse, F/F, season: b5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 19:33:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deird1/pseuds/deird1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What would happen if what happened wasn't what happened? Or if something else happened instead?<br/>(An AU, branching off at <i>Who Are You?</i> and picking up a little later.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not, Now

**Not, Now**

She never gets used to the blonde. It's too shiny, too perky, too West Coast.

And yet she still uses peroxide, hair dye, new _Sun Streakz_ Hair Treatment!* (*not a dye), and once, in a scungy hostel with a cracked mirror over the bathroom sink, good old-fashioned bleach - which makes half her hair snap off in brittle fragments (and Dawn calls her "scarecrow" for months), but hey, at least what's left is yellow.

And yeah - blonde hair feels weird and always will, but without it she'd look _wrong_ every time she saw her reflection.

(Wrong is right is wrong is right is wrong. Or some shit like that.)

Dumb, really, because she's way too recognisable - not that it matters. The Council isn't after her, probably, and the others would be trying magic more than mugshots.

Once, about a year ago, she thought she felt it happening, like a crapload of magic swept over her in this wave, broadcasting her location to the world.  
She completely freaked out at that one, and spent the next day tracking down the local magic guy and threatening him until he gave her a protective amulet.

Which worked, sort of, but also sent her schizo, thinking that Dawn wasn't real at all and never had been, and in the end she decided screw it - she'd rather just run if Willow tried it again.

(She's always running.)

They're in Munich this week, staying in an apartment owned by some people who are loaded enough to be on a cruise, and stupid enough not to have a security system.  
Which means hot showers, silk sheets, and 53 tv channels.

She buys some more peroxide, redyes her roots in the bathroom (wall-to-wall mirror, _massive_ tub, and one of those perfumey scent-spray things), and puts on red lipstick.

Then she goes out to where Dawn is sitting crosslegged on the leather couch watching _Happy Days_ in German, and asks, "So? How do I look?"  
And Dawn raises an eyebrow, and says, "Horrible… in a sexy sort of way."

Which she always says.

(They grin at each other, and then go out. There'll be a club worth going to, somewhere in town.)

She's got a stake on her, of course, like always.

It's not like she goes patrolling ever, but she takes out a vamp from time to time, if she sees them going after someone.

It feels good to help… sometimes.

Sometimes she wonders if there's another Slayer out there now, fighting the good fight, doing the job the way it's supposed to be done. But then she has another dream - chained to a stone wall crying softly - and she knows.

(It's not like she can do anything about it now. Even if she showed up on the Council's doorstep, they'd probably kill them both and start over.)

And she's not signing up again, but a stake feels good - feels _right_.  
These hands have never looked right without some sort of weapon in them.

Actually, compared to Dawn she's probably way under-doing it. That chick'll have a gun and a couple of knives - at least.

Dawn is… kinda psycho.

They met on her first night in Chile, about a month after the swap.  
She was just walking past, and heard all this shouting, and came round the corner where a tiny brunette was screaming and laying into these three vamps with an axe.

No superstrength, and she wasn't dusting them, but that's mostly 'cause Dawn goes for the knee-caps.

("My philosophy," she says, "is to put them in pain, and run. And then they tell their friends about me, and no-one else will bother trying." Not that Dawn actually runs that much.)

So, she pulled out a stake and took them all out, and then dumped Dawn at a bar, briefly explained that vamps take a bit more killing than your average attacker, and left.  
Never thought she'd see her again.

Nowadays, she has no idea what she'd do without her.

It's good having someone to hang with, to watch her back - someone who knows what it's like to be on the run.  
Dawn's running from someone too, although she's never said who. And it's not the kind of thing you ask.

At any rate, it's good knowing that Dawn'll watch her back - and _important_ that she's there to protect Dawn, too. Real important.

She'd do _anything_ for Dawn.

Maybe it's because Dawn is the only person who's never given up on her.  
Or maybe it's because the way she talks, the way she smiles, the way she _is_… it all reminds her of B. She can't let go of that - not now.

Or maybe it's just a sex thing.

(She's known Dawn forever. That's what it feels like.)

They turn heads, in the club.  
Obvious, right - two hot chicks in heels, one blonde, one brunette. Of course everyone's watching them.

She's still not used to being the blonde one. Even after this long.  
She'll catch sight of herself in a mirror, unprepared, and suddenly she'll feel short, and strange, and there's no scar on her stomach but those bite marks on her neck are standing out - they're all she can see.

And she feels. Just. _Wrong_.

(This is not who you are.)

But then Dawn puts a chin on her shoulder, and slides two arms around her, and smiles softly at her reflection.

"Come dance?"

And she can stop looking at the (wrong, so wrong) blonde hair that wasn't hers, and look at Dawn instead.  
And they make their way to the centre of the room, with the lights shining down and everyone looking at them.

As the beat starts up again, she closes her eyes, moves her hips, dances as if this is all there is… and _forgets_.


End file.
